Warren Cochrane is an Immortal with a problem. He seems to have amnesia, doesn't remember that he is Immortal. As one of Warren's old friends, Mac wants to help. They both fought for Bonnie Prince Charlie, but Warren was killed just before Culloden so Duncan got to experience that one without him. Warren retains a memory of Charlie as a fit and vigorous leader, which is way out of keeping with the reality of the older drunken Prince Charlie that he and Duncan encounter forty years later.
Methos has returned from Alexa's deathbed. Duncan investigates Warren's amnesia and discovers to his horror that the delusional Warren killed his student, surely one of the worst things an honorable Immortal could ever do. Something that might drive an Immortal to amnesia.
Warren recovers his memory, and in his pain he challenges Mac who fights him, but leaves him living, and still delusional.
Methos and Mac have a short philosophical discussion concerning memories, and Methos asserts that he must retain his memory, or who would remember Alexa?
Questions:
1. Mac remembers both the gallant Prince Charlie defeated at Culloden and the drunken hulk of a man Charlie became. Warren Cochrane's memory was in a terminal loop, remembering only the Bonnie Prince Charlie. What hope was there for Warren, left delusional and with a history of killing a student for treading on his delusions? Was Duncan right to let him live?
2. Methos, the world's oldest Immortal, fell in love with a young mortal who was already dying, and stayed with her through her death. There's a lot of poetic stuff going on here, a whole lot of yin and yang. Comment?
3. I ask meself what Warren would have though of Prince Charlie got up in that dress that Ceirdwyn put him in to escape from Scotland after Culloden?
4. So recently returned from madness himself, Duncan seems disturbingly willing to let an old friend stew in the dregs of delusion and the pain of killing a student. He could have sought help from his old friend Sean Burns, but Burns is playing for the Immortal Bowling League now. What else could he have done for Warren? Should he have tried to help Warren? Did Warren's having killed a student taint him in Duncan's eyes?
5. The title of this episode is Through a Glass Darkly. Why?